Judgement
by EvilFuzzy9
Summary: Naruto and Sasuke's final battle begins. [gen]


**Judgement**

A _Naruto_ oneshot

By

EvilFuzzy9

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Rating: T

Genre: Friendship/Suspense

Characters/Pairings: Sasuke, Naruto; [N/A]

Summary: Naruto and Sasuke's final battle begins. [gen]

* * *

"Are you really going to kill the five kage?!"

Naruto's desperate question rang through the air, echoing down in the valley below. He stood on the head of Hashirama's statue at the Valley of the End. On the other side of the waterfall stood Sasuke atop the statue of Madara.

Sasuke scoffed lightly.

"But of course," he said. "They're a cancer on the world of shinobi. The past needs to be cut away before the world can move forward, or else we will just continue to stagnate!"

Naruto frowned, and gave Sasuke a disapproving look. He thought back to the battle against the Edo Tensei Madara, and how the Five Kage had put their lives on the line to fight him. In his mind's eye he saw their determined faces staring Madara down, bracing themselves for the worst.

He remembered what they had told his clone, the single, simple order they had given him before laying it all down and trading blows with one of the most terrifyingly powerful shinobi to ever live, upgraded far beyond the strength he'd had even in his prime and given an immortal, indestructible body to boot.

He thought of their resolve, that determination to fight for a better future, that willingness to try and _change_ things from the way they had always been. All they'd needed was an example, a common enemy, an inspiration, and they had been able to put aside decades of grudges and blood feuds in order to face the most dire threat in the history of the Elemental Nations.

He thought of the five kage. Not the figureheads, but the _people_.

Ay was willing to go to any lengths to protect his brother. He had a short temper and little patience for those he deigned weak, but beneath that was a good heart. He cared deeply about his village and his people. He put his own body on the line to ensure the continued safety and prosperity of the Hidden Cloud.

Mei was a good person stuck cleaning up after a messy situation. For generations her village had gotten a nasty rap – its leaders manipulated, its people ravaged by civil wars – and she had been spending her full term as Mizukage thus far just trying to turn things around. She may have been eccentric, but she always had the best interests of her people in mind.

Ohnoki, out of all the five kage, definitely had the most dirt on his hands. Disillusioned at a young age by an unfortunate encounter with Madara Uchiha, he had long been as amoral and opportunistic as a shinobi leader could be. And with so many years of leadership under his belt, he had a multitude of mistakes weighing down on his conscience. Yet despite this, he had done everything he could to stop Madara and make up for his many past mistakes, rediscovering the idealism he had lost in his youth.

Granny Tsunade had never even wanted to be Hokage. She had hated the village for years because of the senseless wars which had taken the lives of her brother and her lover. She had spurned the offer of becoming Hokage, decrying a desire for that position as a death wish at best and outright foolishness at worst. Only upon seeing the Will of Fire which burned in the new generation, watching as a young genin nearly gave his life just trying to do what he believed was right, causing her to remember the people she had lost and realize that while she couldn't bring them back, she could still carry on their wills, did she cast aside her doubts and accept the title of Hokage.

And least of all the five kage did _Gaara_ deserve some callous execution. He was of the same generation as Sasuke and Naruto, a young shinobi who had suffered through many similar hardships and adversities. He was as much a victim of the ninja system as Naruto or Sasuke themselves, and although in his youth he had been unstable and violent, as Kazekage he was a kind and gentle leader willing to put himself in harm's way to save the very same people and village that he had once disdained and abhorred.

Naruto thought of the five kage. He thought of the people they were, what he knew of their pasts and their hardships, their individual and collective resolve to protect the things they cherished. He thought of the nuanced, three dimensional, fallible human beings who held the positions of the five kage: Ay, Mei, Ohnoki, Tsunade, and Gaara.

He looked across the valley at Sasuke, frowning deeper and furrowing his brow.

"...is that really what you think?" he inquired, hoping against hope that there was yet some chance to reason with his dear, old friend.

Sasuke met Naruto's gaze. Onyx eyes morphed, transforming into a sharingan with a one-eye rinnegan.

"It is," the once self-proclaimed avenger declared resolutely. "I've made up my mind, Naruto. You can't stop me!"

Naruto crossed his arms over his chest.

"You may have those special eyes..." he said slowly. "...but it's pretty obvious now that you're the one who can't see the trees for the forest." He glared sternly at his friend, squaring his shoulders. "You're calling the five kage a cancer and saying they've gotta be executed? You don't know anything."

Sasuke scoffed.

"No. It is _you_ who knows nothing, Naruto," he replied with a touch of petulance. "You're so soft-hearted and idealistic that you can't do what needs to be done. You could never do what Itachi did...!"

"You're right about one thing, at least," Naruto agreed. "I _couldn't_ do what he did. Not after seeing all the trouble his actions caused."

Sasuke's eyes widened, and he snarled.

"You...! Take that back!" he hissed, taking a step forward and furiously clenching his fists. "Take it back right now!"

Naruto stood immovable atop Hashirama's great effigy, unfazed by Sasuke's yelling.

"I stand by what I said. Itachi made a mistake when he went through with the massacre," he said, looking Sasuke straight in the eye. He saw his friend grit his teeth, and felt a sensation like warm water pouring down his neck.

_Genjutsu_.

Closing his eyes, Naruto drew on a bit of bijuu chakra to pop the illusion like a balloon. Sasuke may have sealed the tailed beasts away, but the yin half of Kurama's energy was still inside his body. With such a great quantity of spiritual energy at his disposal, brushing off Sasuke's sharingan illusions was like child's play.

He opened his eyes, sensing Sasuke behind him. Reflexively, he drew a kunai faster than the eye could follow, sidestepping and deflecting an overhead swipe from Sasuke's sword.

The bladework which followed was something to make even the likes of Zabuza or Mifune green with envy, Sasuke's swordsmanship indeed strongly mimicking the style of the Land of Iron's samurai. He did not use the sharingan to copy jutsu like Kakashi, but instantly burning complex taijutsu or kenjutsu motions into your muscle memory was a very tempting deal for someone who had for so long been so obsessed with becoming stronger.

Naruto was hard pressed to defend against Sasuke's onslaught, moving his kunai precisely to block his opponent's sword. Steel flashed in silver-white blurs of razor motion at lightning speed. The ring of metal against metal rang noisily in their ears.

"Don't you get it, Sasuke?" Naruto said. "The massace never should've happened. If people had just sat down and seriously _talked _about their problems..."

"Don't you patronize me!" Sasuke snapped, fiercely channeling lightning chakra through the blade of his sword. "You don't know anything about what was going on back then...!"

He swung his blade, effortlessly slicing a large stone clean in half.

Naruto struck him from behind with a flying kick, nearly sending Sasuke flying right off of Hashirama's head.

"Neither do you, Sasuke. You were just a kid. We both were!"

Sasuke snarled, grabbing Naruto by the ankle.

"Speak for yourself...!" he roared. "I know what I'm doing! I have a clear goal in front of me, and I won't stop until I've achieved it!"

He flung his former friend at a nearby cliff face, hands immediately flying up to blur through a sequence of seals.

_Fire Style...!_

The ground beneath his feet shifted before Sasuke could execute his jutsu, temporarily distracting him. Mainly because he _knew_ he should have been standing on solid rock...

...aaaand he saw that Hashirama's head was crumbling violently beneath his feet, shattered by some incredibly violent force. Naturally, a half dozen shadow clones chose then to fly at Sasuke from nearly every direction at once. They battered and grappled with the Uchiha, pushing him to the limits of his temper.

He roared, and black flames enveloped the multiple kage bunshin.

"NAAARUUTOOOO!"

The bones and transparent, glowing armor of a partial Susanoo began to form around Sasuke. His eyes flashed, and he willed a mass of black curling flames to spread in every direction around him.

That didn't stop Naruto from lobbing a _Sage Art: Rasenshuriken_ at him, though. And, not wanting to test whether his susanoo's defenses could hold up against a rasenshuriken boosted kagutsuchi, Sasuke looked up and used his rinnegan to teleport back over to Madara's head.

"SAASUKEEEEEEEE!"

...which was exactly where the original Naruto was waiting for him, a super-massive planetary rasengan aimed straight for his incomplete susanoo's weak point.

Sasuke tried to teleport away from this attack, but his chakra was too strained from teleporting with an active susanoo. The moment it took him to try this and realize that it wouldn't work was just long enough for Naruto's attack to hit.

Aaaand there went Madara's statue, plus a good chunk of the nearby cliffs.

"Dammit...!" Sasuke hissed as he crashed into the water, his susanoo beginning to disintegrate around him.

Naruto crossed his arms over his chest, looking down at the ripples in the water.

"This is what happens..." he mused. "...when you think about nothing but yourself." His eyes flashed. "C'mon, Sasuke! I know an attack like that isn't enough to finish you. Get back up. I'm not done beating sense into you."

The river erupted. Sasuke's final susanoo materialized, the Uchiha leveling a deathly glare at his friend and fated opponent.

"Naruto...!" he growled, weaving his hands together in arcane seals.

"Sasuke..." Naruto sighed, clasping his hands and exhaling.

Two monstrous phantasms of a kitsune and a tengu collided in the Valley of the End, gouging the earth with the utter ferocity of their combat. Naruto and Sasuke fought with unparalleled fury.

In the end, this was the only way they could prove who was right.

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A/N: Originally wanted to just have Naruto picking apart Sasuke's clearly flawed logic in wanting to assassinate the five kage, but it kinda became something mildly more dramatic.

**Updated:** 10-3-14

**TTFN and R&amp;R!**

– — ❤


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